New Again, Every Time
by Chaos Dragon
Summary: More than a year after Ian's death and she still hasn't forgiven him for handing Alex to Blunt, Jack comes across something that might make her realize that when Ian died, things weren't as they seemed. Jack/Ian


New Again, Every Time

Someone else might have said it was annoying, but Ian never considered it so. He was very careful and precise about everything he did, excepting the day he'd nearly run a loud-mouthed, outspoken American girl down and then offered her a job. But then, Ian Rider was quite certain that there was nothing in the world that could prepare a man for Jack Starbright. Truly, she had been a breath of life into his home and had worked miracles with Alex. Now Alex didn't have just Ian, he had Jack, and if they were an odd bunch, they were still a family.

The small box in his hand was warm black velvet as Ian carefully turned the knob to Jack's door. She was asleep, no doubt still annoyed with him for refusing to try and delay his 'business trip' by a day. Jack had been insistent, since he'd barely been back before his last mission; she didn't think that it was healthy for Alex to see his uncle so rarely. She'd told him later that it wasn't right for him to disappear on both of them so often for so long.

Ian had done his best to soothe her, but Jack had been out of sorts, which was why he was trying to accomplish his current mission with as little sound as possible. Waking her wouldn't go over well, nor would she be pleased to realize that he planned to slip off in the middle of the night like a Bedouin through the desert. At least he wasn't going back there.

Cornwall for what he hoped was an easy bit of recon. At least he'd not have to worry about the sand and heat, just the mission itself. He could be back in a month with nothing more to worry about than a bit of Jack's anger (which actually was quite a substantial fear when it came to it) and trying to make one of Alex's football games. He could take the boy to a Chelsea match, drag Jack along, treat them to dinner.

Jack was sleeping easily, her back to him though Ian could only tell by the fact that her red hair was strewn down the pillow and her back. She never slept with it over her face, would even bat it away in her sleep. The carpet was thick enough underfoot and Ian sure enough of the flooring that he was able to find his way quickly to her closet through the gloom. He'd taken the precaution of using a bit of cooking oil on the hinges to the closet—anything else he'd known would leave a scent in the air that would make her wary and she wouldn't have slept—so Ian was also just as sure of silence when he opened the door.

It was just going to fall now, Ian mused as glanced from right to left across the neat rows of far too many clothes. No wonder she'd been hinting that she needed more closet space. Ian shook his head and bit back a smile, focusing on what he'd come to do. Just going to fall, he reminded himself, so a winter coat was where it would go this time. She had one, a bright Kelly green coat he'd brought her once from Ireland. He'd thought it would go so well with her hair and he'd teased her all that winter about being a proper Irish lass. She'd yelled at him, but she'd been smiling to do so.

The box was small enough that she'd actually need to be wearing the coat to know it was there, because Jack would get cold and rub her hands together, blow on them and only then deign to shove them into the pockets. And then she'd find it if it still needed to be there. She'd have the box and then the key and then she'd have everything else she would ever need if he didn't come back this time.

Ian didn't smile or frown or do anything really as he unbuttoned the front right pocket of the Kelly green coat and slipped the velvet covered box inside. He was just as blank as he buttoned it back and carefully arranged the hangers so closely to their original state that he couldn't tell he'd touched them. Jack would never know he'd been there, which was as it should be.

In a month he'd be back, Ian told himself as he closed the closet door and paced back across the thick pile of the carpet. Cornwall would be a distant memory and Ian would retrieve the key and he'd not have to worry about it until the next time he was handed a mission. And then he'd do it all over again.

He watched Jack for a moment more than closed the door just as carefully, the snick of it pulling snug telling him when to let go. He went down the hall and peeked in on Alex, and then down the stairs to his waiting bag and his waiting mission.

xXx

It was good to have Alex home again. Jack was never happy when he was gone on his missions, there was the constant fear in the pit of her stomach, a tense, nauseating fear that something would happen and he'd… No, she couldn't bring herself to even think it, it was too close to jinxing the fifteen year old. Like if she even thought he might die then he would, and she'd be left along just as Ian had. Not quite the same, no. Ian had left her Alex and the legacy of a child he'd trained to be a spy.

She wasn't sure if she'd ever forgive him for that, not even as long ago as it'd been since he'd been killed. More than a year now. Jack wondered if it would ever get any easier. But at least for now Alex was home, safe and sound, with nothing more than a cast on his wrist and stitches behind his ears. And his adamant refusal to explain the stitches to her. Jack was fairly certain she didn't want to know.

A glance at the clock confirmed that Jack would be late for her shift, thank god she hadn't lost this job when Alex came home. She had a firm rule that when he wasn't away she'd always be there whenever he wasn't in school, and she intended on keeping that private promise to herself. It had meant a lot of unhappy former employers when she consistently told them she could no longer work nights and weekends, but to Jack it was worth it. The stipend she got from MI6 via the trust fund Ian had set up for Alex was enough to cover bills and necessities with only a little help from her own wages.

The rest of them mostly went to Alex, not that he knew where that money came from. But she so wanted him to have as normal a life he could when he was home. Doing without the things she wanted suited her fine if it meant Alex could smile again.

Her coat was waiting for her and so was her shift. She needed to make sure that she wasn't too late, because as much as her current boss liked her Jack didn't want to risk losing this job. She was just too tired of searching for a new one to let it go because she couldn't make it on time. Of course, it would happen that Jack would spill her coffee right down the coat as she was trying to juggle the mug, her bag, and put it on at the same time.

"Dammit," she cursed softly. Napkins were effective at blotting the dark stain, but it was wet through and Jack didn't anticipate spending the next six hours wearing a brown stain across her chest because the coffee had seeped from the jacket. There was nothing else to do but to grab a new one and waste precious time doing so.

With a sigh of dismay jack dropped her bag on the sofa and headed for the kitchen to dump the remainder of her coffee into the drain before rinsing the cup and leaving it in the sink upside down. The jacket she tossed into the a basket near the washer before she rushed up the stairs, taking them two at a time and then racing down her the hall. She had jackets, and more than one, but it was cold out and almost snowing, and most of what she had wasn't suited for the heavy wet snow and she'd be frozen before she even made it down the walk.

It was habit more than anything else that had Jack pulling out the thick woolen Kelly green coat Ian had given her years before, the coat that she had purposely ignored last winter just after his death. Granted, half of her time had been spent worrying about Alex and the other half had been trying to defy Blunt and MI6, but Jack had still managed to maintain her anger with Ian Rider and his secret.

"It's not like I didn't know you were hiding something," she muttered, looking balefully at the bright coat. "You could have told me, I'd have kept your secrets."

She sniffed against the sudden tightness in her throat and the burning in her eyes, but Jack Starbright was a practical sort of woman and she knew that she'd be wearing the jacket, no matter if she was still hurt by Ian's lack of trust or angry because he'd lied and kept secrets. She had Alex to take care of, after all, and Ian would probably pop out of his grave and haunt her if she lost her job and the little pocket money they had just because she wanted to be spiteful and not wear the sturdy coat he'd given her.

But her jaw was clenched tight as she pulled the damned thing on and buttoned it up before racing right back down the stairs to her bag and the waiting cold outside. The straps to her purse wanted to slip down as she hunched her shoulders against the cold while she locked the door, but Jack just hitched it back up farther before starting down the front walk, her hands freezing in the icy air.

Jack rubbed them together trying to generate more heat, then blew on them. They were colder afterward, the temporary warmth akin to cruel and unusual punishment as the wind whipped the miniscule warmth away immediately. Jack gave up quickly, not wanting to be a glutton for punishment just because she was still pissy with one Ian Rider, and quickly undid the buttons on the two front pockets, sinking her hands into them with relief.

So when her right hand hit something, Jack was understandably confused. Heedless of the cold and the fact that she was now going to be _very_ late to work, Jack pulled her hand out, hand clenched around what looked to be a small, black velvet jeweler's box. Before she could even register the depth of her confusion Jack popped it open, lifting the lid to stare at the small key inside, and the tiny tag attached with Ian's neat print on it.

_Safe Store, Notting Hill Gate, Unit 1112._

She arched a slender red eyebrow and said to herself, "What the hell?"

xXx

It was relatively neat looking, when she arrived. Jack had chanced the weather and her driving in it, since she normally used the tube when it snowed. But this once Jack figured it couldn't hurt (even if she did kill someone.) It was across from a row of cozy townhouses and tucked behind some less than cozy looking dark brick apartments. It was even made of the same brick, which made Jack curse Ian for picking it. But then, he was already dead so her curses were already doomed to disappoint her.

"Help you?" the short man in the office asked her with a faint smile and an irritated brow. He'd been watching something on a miniature television sitting on the counter, but Jack didn't particularly care at this point. She was already half frozen from the walk in and she thought she might burst at wondering what Ian had thought was so important that he'd obviously taken such measures before his last mission.

"I'm looking for a storage unit here rented to Ian Rider," Jack told him before holding up the key. "Unit 1112, please." The politeness was forced, Jack couldn't bring herself to care. She needed to know what he'd hidden here.

"It's in the back. Walk on round the side."

With a scathing look Jack turned around, nearly shaking her head at his rudeness before walking on past him and through the side door that had been so casually pointed out. She shuddered against the wind again wishing that she'd gone back in the house to change into jeans instead of the stupid skirt she had to wear, but it had been an afterthought. God, she hadn't even called her boss. She was fired for sure now.

It only took a few minutes of searching before she found a unit with a number closer to what she wanted. A start in the wrong direction wasted a few steps but Jack caught herself before she'd gone past a single unit and turned the other way. _Ten, eleven, twelve,_ she counted off silently before stopping in front of the small rolling door to the unit that read 1112. The metal was cold; Jack ignored it as she slid the key into the lock and turned it.

It was cold inside, but less so without the wind. Ian had so thoughtfully strung a battery powered lamp along the inside and Jack flicked the switch on the bottom of it before closing the door and cutting off the last of the rushing air outside. There was a box, the lamp, and that was it. Jack looked around once more, then looked skyward.

"Ian," she said, "you have got to be kidding me. All of this for a little box?"

But nonetheless Jack went to it and dropped to her knees, tucked her feet under her before opening the lid and beginning to inspect the contents. It was definitely in accordance with Ian's wishes, Jack assumed. The papers were as neat and orderly as Jack would have expected from Ian Rider, though half of the handwritten labels weren't in his familiar neat print. Curious, Jack began to look closer.

To find the Rider's wills was surprising, since all Jack had known of Helen and John Rider was that they'd died in a plane accident. Well, that was all she'd known till more recently. But their wills said a great deal more about them, that they'd left everything they had to Alex and appointed Ian his guardian and executor. Jack expected that Ian's well covered those monies and properties, he was too thorough a man to not have covered that. There was a file with pictures in it, of Alex's parents, Alex himself when he was but a baby, John and Ian Rider as children.

Jack bypassed it quickly, not ready to see Ian's eyes looking at her no matter what his age in the picture. And she found more. Ian's bequests, Alex's trust papers. Copies of them, at the least. And Alex was a very wealthy boy indeed. Properties across London and England as well, a few parcels in the States, something in Spanish or Italian; Alex would be able to tell the difference for her.

And a neatly labeled envelope with his will. Ian Rider's will wherein he left Alex to the none too gentle care of the Royal & General so that he could be exploited and blackmailed.

She almost ripped the document in half, but held her hand at the last. Jack was angry with him, yes. Furious, even. But it was Alex's uncle's will and Alex would want it. And Jack might want to make a copy of it so she could throw darts at it. Then Jack saw her name in the middle of the will, and she stopped dead at the sentence it was typed in.

_I hereby appoint Jack Anne Starbright as legal guardian of Alexander Jacob Rider if she accepts._

A frantic glance up made Jack's mouth fall farther open, one hand coming to it as if to hold in the painful gasping breaths she was taking. It was dated only months before his death. It was dated after the will that MI6 had shown her when she demanded proof. It was Ian's legal last will, and it made Alex hers and not Blunt's.

Hands shaking Jack started to climb to her feet, one hand clutching the copy of the will, the other reaching for the box lid. A folded note fell from within it and Jack paused, picking it up. She flipped it open from the centerfold and was greeted by lines of Ian's steady script, and Jack sat back down, will clutched to her breast and the box of Alex's heritage forgotten as she read what Jack began to understand was the last thing Ian would ever say to her.

_Jack,_

_If you're reading this then I'm dead. I'll have to ask your forgiveness for it, as I've spent the entire time I've known you lying, but seeing as how I'm no longer alive then my oaths no longer bind me. And Alex is far more important to me than anything I ever signed for Alan Blunt. I'm sure that name has no meaning to you, but I don't trust him where my nephew or you is concerned. If he knew what Alex was, what Alex is capable of, then Alex would be at risk, and that isn't something I can allow._

_You've told me so many times over the years that Alex isn't like any boy you've ever seen, and he's not. Jack, I've spent Alex's entire life making sure that he could do the things I do. It was the best way I could think of to keep him safe if I ever died. Please don't frown at me as I know you're doing right now, I'm well aware that this makes no sense to you. I never manage the explanation any better, so I've learned to be very much like you about it._

_I wasn't a bank manager when I was alive. I was an operative for MI6, a spy, and my business trips were missions handed down from the director, Alan Blunt. I was good, very good, but since this is in your possession I obviously wasn't good enough. I did try to make sure Alex was though, because I fear it's entirely possible that someone might consider him a liability should they ever connect him to Ian or John Rider._

_I know it's a great deal to ask of you Jack, and that I only mentioned it once in passing, but this case has all of the documentation you will need to be declared Alex's legal guardian and the executor of a trust for him. Everything else I leave to you, the will enclosed instructs this. There's a copy on file with the gentleman who drew it up, his is the address written on the envelope._

_If I'd thought it would do any good I'd have made sure there were new identities and enough money to support you both forever. But you're too good a girl to do such a thing, so I've done all this instead. If I'd had any sense I'd've left MI6 years ago and spent all my time with you and Alex. Too strong a sense of duty, I suppose._

_Don't ever doubt how much I love you and Alex, Jack, because I do. My world revolves around you, even if I'm not there with you right now. Please take care of Alex, and of yourself, and try to forgive me one day for putting the both of you through this. Stay safe, and be happy._

_All the times I write this and still it sounds so rushed, so random. I write this letter new again, every time I leave you. I hope you never read it._

_Ian_

For a moment Jack couldn't do anything but stare at the letter he'd left her. Then she dropped it and the crumpled will to her lap, the grief for him she'd refused for more than a year creeping up. She put her face into her hands and wept.

xXx

Yeah, sorry, nothing epic here, just a random idea I had last night that wasn't too complicated for me to write off and on at work. Yes, I ship Jack/Ian. No, I didn't choose Jacob because of Twilight. Yes, I'm writing more for them.


End file.
